21st Century Learning and Teaching

The Equation Group's attack on hard-drive firmware is one of the most advanced ever discovered, Kaspersky Lab said.

A cyberespionage group with a toolset similar to ones used by U.S. intelligence agencies has infiltrated key institutions in countries including Iran and Russia, utilizing a startlingly advanced form of malware that is impossible to remove once it's infected your PC.

Kaspersky Lab released a report Monday that said the tools were created by the “Equation” group, which it stopped short of linking to the U.S. National Security Agency

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The tools, exploits and malware used by the group—named after its penchant for encryption—have strong similarities with NSA techniques described in top-secret documents leaked in 2013.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=REGIN

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Warriorpride

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Quantum

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=cyberwar

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=NSA

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=TAO

- https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/visual-it-securitypart2-your-computer-as-a-possible-cyber-weapon/

The Heartbleed bug is unusually worrisome because it could possibly be used by the NSA or other spy agencies to steal your usernames and passwords — for sensitive services like banking, ecommerce, and web-based email — as well as the private keys that vulnerable web sites use to encrypt your traffic to them.

Either way, there are now signatures available to detect exploits against Heartbleed, as Dutch security firm Fox-IT points out on its website, and depending on how much logging companies do with their intrusion-detection systems, it may be possible to review activity retroactively to uncover any attacks going back over the last two years.

Beyond device details, data shared over the internet by iOS and Android apps can include personal information such as age, gender, and location, while some apps share even more sensitive user infor...